For the last few weeks we’ve been trying to catch a mouse.
A MOUSE that I am horribly scared of and whilst the logical part of my brain understands the tiny little adorable fluffy creature is smaller than me and not at all ferocious the imaginative part of my brain envisions quite a different story.
In the dark, as the little rodent scratches ferociously at my delectable slab of Lindt chocolate, I see a monstrous creature. His matted fur hangs losely as he grows to 15 times his normal size. Eyes bulge and red lines begin to appear casting the effect of a zombie rat. Huge white fangs fall out the sides of his mouth as he slowly makes his way towards my toes….to bite!!!!!!
Irrational I know …but none the less, I am petrified of wild mice, mostly at night.
For 3 weeks we tried to catch what we thought was one mouse dancing around our bedroom, climbing into our sweet treats. No chocolate was safe.
We tried to catch the mouse humanely. I didn’t want it to die and buying a mouse trap that didn’t have spikes in Cape Town is like hunting for that proverbial needle in a haystack. No one had stock.
We tried ratex in a box . The mouse never touched it.
Amidst this we caught sight of it late one evening and I had papa, Dylan, Shaun and Monkey try for an hour to catch this mouse , as I escaped with bear and Kiki to the sanctuary of the lounge.
Four men, one mouse.
They turned my room upside down. Emptied my cupboards, even removing the base of the cupboard. All to no avail. The mouse was gone.
Finally , out of desperation as I wasn’t sleeping , thinking of this mouse run over us we finally put down a sticky mouse trap.
That night I heard the squeaks of the poor mouse getting stuck but no way in hell was i going to go see . I waited till papa woke for him to dispose of the mouse.
Imagine my shock when we discovered not one but two mice on the trap.
Two stinking evil rodents running around my room eating my chocolates.
We relaxed after the mice were caught. I could once again sleep without fear of a mice apocalypse.
Until two nights ago when papa spotted a teeny tiny baby mouse run past his foot.
We added mouse paper to our shopping list. It was a baby mouse , I wasn’t overly freaked out.
Yesterday as I sat on the bed, bear playing on his bike around me and talking to Shaun the mouse was the last thing on my mind.
Bear had been nibbling on his 3 o clock snack of crisps and I noted I was going to have to go get the dustpan and broom to sweep up the crumbs.
Next thing , bear came excitedly towards me. Tiny hand holding something ever so gently.
“CAT” He said as he showed me the thing lying on his hand.
I nearly died.
There lay a half squished, semi conscious little brown mouse as my bear loving gazed at the mini cat he had caught.
Every inch of my body was squirming and I’m ever so greatful Shaun was next to him and quite eager to remove the mouse from bears hands to examine.
As the mom of 5 boys , there is very little I haven’t seen when it comes to creatures but not once in my 23 years of being a boy mom have any of my son’s presented me with a half dead mouse….That they managed to catch.
Sadly we couldn’t do anything for the mouse.
From what I can determine, the baby mouse ( whose parents we obviously killed) was hungry and stupidly came out of hiding to share bears crisp crumbs off the floor. Bear had been riding his push bike and by the limp arm and leg of the mouse it looks like bear ran over the mouse.
He ran over the mouse … only in my house 🤷♀️🙈🤣
I actually felt quite sorry for it.
